The vast majority of people can identify other people's sex; so why the pretence that men are women?

[NewLightbulbs]

Just this, really.

The vast majority of people can identify other people's sex very quickly; it's bloody obvious. So why the pretence that men are women, and we will threaten you if you don't play along?

Is that really being kind? Or is it bludgeoning with threats of job loss, assault, doxing, rape, death?

For correctly observing that a man is a man?

Is there any sanity at all in this state of affairs?

But this is merely leverage to say to females because you might not notice this one, you cannot say no to that one - who has a beard and is very male presenting and is extremely intimidating and very very obviously a male in the female space. It's just the end of the wedge to try and smash women's boundaries.

It has been tried. The GRA was the compromise of 'a very few, who have been through the full transition', and that has been used to mean 'any male at any time of any presentation and stuff the impact and exclusion of females that they cause tee hee hee sucks to be you'. There is no gatekeeping on the door. There is no form of drawing a line between who absolutely passes, who passes sometimes, who thinks they pass but doesn't, and who is triumphantly marching in knowing the shock value causing and waving a sword for any female who objects (or if you're Izzard, chasing you down the street to shout at you about male entitlement to do wtf Izzard likes unhindered by the needs of females).

If it is one it is all. So it cannot be any. It was not females who smashed any good will or trust. This is now a male issue to fix. No males should be entering female spaces and breaking female boundaries and excluding females in order to meet their own needs, regardless of their personal appearance.

Yes but some people do.want to be out hence why no single passing TW in the public sphere? I think if it were not hugely rare we'd expect at least a couple

Well someone accidentally mentioned it to one person a few years back - said person was utterly shocked and the friend in question was absolutely devastated. The person who found out has been sworn to secrecy and it hasn't been mentioned since.

I shouldn't have to say 'trust me, it's convincing'. It is, but ultimately it shouldn't matter whether it's 'convincing' because the point is that it's actually no one's business what's between my friend's legs. I knew them when they were mid-transition and it was less convincing. So what? It's no less upsetting when small minded people made judgmental comments, whether or not you can 'tell'.

People need to accept that sometimes they can't tell a person's sex by looking at them. You might have met a man who is actually a woman, or a woman who is actually a man, and not known. Is that so hard to believe? And does it even matter?

You only know what you know.

@nilsmousehammer I don't think I said anything about single sex/ female spaces, that's a different debate and yes a very difficult one.

My point is simply in response to OP, that people actually cannot tell someone's sex as often as they think they can. When it's obvious it's obvious, but you don't know when you don't know.

And does it even matter?

Yes.

It really, really does.

See my post above. It cannot be all the time and only about TQ+ people. And the whole 'my lovely friend' (not my Nigel) is disingenous at best.

Some of us also have lovely friends who are not TQ+ but from other protected characteristics, and are losing equality of access to society and losing any space or any resource at all, so that your lovely friend can have their first preferred choice from everything. Are you ok with that?

Are TQ+ people more valuable and important than other people?

Is it ok for some people to lose everything if they're just from boring old minorities who aren't so cool to hang about with and don't have nice flags and parades and remembrance days and a lot of street cred for being an ally to?

Are you into societal inequality and exclusion for females?

@nilsmousehammer I didn't say anything about single sex spaces and I certainly didn't say anything about anyone being more valuable than anyone else. Stop putting words into my mouth.

(Bowing out of this thread now).

Sadly, no it's not a different debate.

It's this one.

Male supremacism is being fixed in law in Scotland right now, propped up with the whole 'but sometimes you can't tell' thing at the root of it. None of this is innocent at present, the whole damned mess is all one interconnected spiderweb of manipulation, and it is destroying female rights, access, equality.

Of course it matters. Male people have male bodies and grew up.with male privilege. Women have been treated badly because of what is between their legs. Your friend does not have that history. To pretend it doesn't matter is either short sighted or disingenuous. Regardless of whether your friend convinces people or not they have no right to be in women's sports and women's shortlists. You can't identify out of the privilege you've had and have.

What @nilsmousehammer said.

One person's 'nice trans friend' will be violating other women's spaces by using their work loos, changing facilities etc. What about religious women? He will be breaking what to them is a sacred taboo.

We have to draw a line in the sand, no exceptions.

We have to work to get the laws amended to clearly uphold our rights.

I agree that someone's appearance or how someone else assesses that appearance has very little to do with whether a person is male or female.

That is the thing that matters in the relatively few situations where sex matters. Not amazing bone structure etc...

It's everyone's business what's between someone else's legs, when they are a space reserved for women.

If I found out that someone I'd talked to as a woman, and spoken about the burden of housework, the difficulties of menstruation and the birth horror stories, only to discover they were a passing TW, I would feel embarrassed, humiliated, betrayed and deceived. The information I share with men and women is very different. I therefore dont understand how "passing" is a good thing. Does this make me a transphobe or a bad person? I don't really know.

Quite.

I have absolutely no problem at all with anyone be they gay, straight, trans, bi, vegan, whatever.

I have a major problem with being intentionally manipulated and deceived, which means i'm being used without consent to meet someone else's needs. And I have a very major problem with male people feeling entitled to smash female people's boundaries and destroy their equality and access, and exclude them from anywhere, in order to have their preferred choice of everywhere.

That behaviour is wholly unacceptable. The person's gender identity or any other characteristic is irrelevant.

Does it really need to be said that just because women are not pointing at TW in public and going “you’re a man!!!!” that it means we think they pass??

it means we’re being kind or tactful or we’re scared of what would happen if we pointed it out

I’m so tired of pointing out the obvious reasons why in real life, women don’t announce to TW that they don’t pass 🤦🏻‍♀️

Can’t always tell. Not even after being pressed face to face in a protest with only a piece of cardboard between your bodies and taunting each other. I am of course referring to Jeanna Hoch in Tacoma Washington who illegally bear maced a natal female woman for almost, but not quite, spitting on her.

At first Jeanna claimed the woman was a TW, but later on chased her down and got on camera that she was a bona fide XX woman. And then posted all this and joined in on mocking the woman’s looks and attractiveness.

So, no you can’t always tell. Jeanna mistook a woman for a TW. So there’s a good chance that the TWs you think you are seeing and being freaked out by are actually just women.

Just saying

I'm very tired of the 'you're getting paranoid and being mean to masculine presenting women' thing.

The reason female people are having to get suspicious and paranoid about whether someone is or is not female is because male people broke the trust and force entry to female spaces.

This is like blaming someone for asking you not to stand on their foot.

So it happens rarely and that means there's a good chance the person is actually a woman. Wow! That's a logical complete fail isn't it!

I have long, long been posting on here about how appearances are not really relevant. Then when I ask TRAs questions, they usually bring it back to appearances. "What, even someone who looks like THIS isn't a woman?"

If you think that trans means you want to be the opposite sex, you want to be treated as the opposite sex, then of course appearance matters - you adopt the visual shortcuts that will indicate you present as the opposite sex.

That has zero to do with an inner feeling of gender identity where "gender identity" is entirely decoupled from physical sex.

I think we under estimate the role of smell in sexual attraction- and pheromones

wmen are known to have more acute sense of smell than men, and that it changes over menstrual cycle… hmm not surprising

most other mammals use smell to check out potential mates- I don’t know why some people think that cannot apply to humans

Exactly my point, the initial statements of

Alltheprettyseahorses · Yesterday 08:03
“the bleating that you can't always tell doesn't work in the slightest.”

BloodyHellKen · Yesterday 09:42
“In real life you can tell, especially trans women.”

Brokendaughter · Yesterday 10:42
“Even the blind can tell the difference between anyone born a man or a woman.”

Are all complete logic fails.

Men and women look different, smell different, walk differently and stand differently.
The ones where you can’t tell someone’s sex are incredibly rare and even then if you get close you can tell.
Interestingly I find it’s even easier for women to be able to know someone’s sex

This for me gets to heart of the matter.

up until just a few years ago, this wasn’t on dashboard of most women concerns.

but I am very sure in my life ( ok I’m nearly 60 so it’s a lot of loos) I’ve shared toilet space with trans women- I’ve just not known it. And in not knowing it it hasn’t bothered me.

and the reason I’ve not known it was any trans woman entering female space had to be a very good pass, discrete, and not draw attention to themselves. Probably like most women using loos anyway. They would have had to be dressed in “everyday” woman’s clothes suitable for the situation. So, if I’d gone into M&S and seen a person in jeans, coat , long hair , not glamour make up, not drawing attention I probably wouldn’t have taken much notice. But, If I’d gone into M&S on a Saturday morning and seen a woman applying makeup to an already glamour/sexualised made up face for sometime, asking for tampon or even engaging in any conversation with strangers, sexy skirt, sexy heels, sexy cleavage in very low top, I’d certainly taken a second glance with a “ that’s a bit odd”. if I’d then seen a 6 foot frame, broad shoulders and heavy brow then I’d have clocked it, felt very uncomfortable and started to consider what I should do such as alerted someone

but the point is, I never did see that pre a few years back ( in fairness I’ve only seen it once since but I live a sheltered life now 🤣🤣) . Because woman’s spaces were for women, and we and officials could gatekeeper , the trans women in second example mostly wouldn’t have taken that risk of being challenged, or if on occasions it did happen would have been called out and challenged.

and the difference between the 2 trans women in question? Probably the first has genuine body dysphoria ( maybe even transitioned medically) and the second autogynophelia , or what we used to call transvestite, or drag

The fact we could gate keep meant we could object if it was apparent and that sent a clear signal to autogynaphilia/ queer community that women did not want to be coerced into non consensual involvement in their public sexual predilections.

The right of men to be allowed to self identify and get into womens single sexed spaces has left the door right open to the sort of men who absolutely should be kep,t out - the ones who always passed unnoticed were probably, in the main, not a risk . I’d probably think, they”ll be none to pleased that TRA are shining a bit too much light on who is in woman’s single sex spaces.

The OP quite reasonably said the vast majority can tell so why the pretence.

Anti women posters always pop on with their anecdotes to inadvertently prove that the vast majority was an accurate statement.

Sorry, meant to, add it also leaves door wide open to men who can merely say they’re women while hiding their camera or arousal in their trousers till the coast is clear to commit an offence.